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446 AN IRISH GEORGE IV MAHOGANY FRAMED COCKFIGHTING / LIBRARY CHAIR,with tub form arm supports with slatted back, above a balloon shaped upholstered seat,
raised on turned legs.
The design for this library reading chair relates to one in Rudolph Ackermann’s, ‘
The Reposito-
ry of Arts, Literature, Fashions & r
.’, 1809-1828, pl. 19. Ackermann made an outstanding contri-
bution to the formation and dissemination of contemporary tastes in the early 19th century
and
‘The Repository’
charts the development of furnishing styles of this period.
This was an era which prized innovation and ingenuity above all and the present lot brilliantly
illustrates this with its pragmatic design. In ‘
The Repository’
, Ackermann describes it as one of
‘the most convenient and comfortable library chairs perhaps ever completed... gentlemen...
sit across, with the face towards the desk, contrived for reading... when its occupier is tired of
the first position, it is with the greatest ease turned round in a brass grove [sic], to either one
side or the other; in which case, the gentleman sits sideways’. To conclude, he notes ‘They
are now in great sale at the warerooms of the inventors, Messrs. Morgan and Saunders,
Catherine Street, Strand’.
For a very similar chair by William Priest, see that illustrated by Christopher Gilbert,
Pictorial
Dictionary of Marked London Furniture
, London, 1996, p. 379, fig. 743.
€ 1,500 - 2,000
447 A GEORGE III BLACK AND GILT JAPANNED TIMBER LONGCASE CLOCK,c.1760, with arched top supported on twin pillars enclosing a brass and steel dial, inscribed
‘John Dene, London’, the entire profusely decorated in the chinoiserie taste with figures and
animals in landscapes.
229cm high x 49cm wide
€ 4,000 - 6,000